Jurassic Computer Park

Got old electronic equipment? Don't add it to the local landfill--recycle, reuse.

Editor's Note: See the upcoming July
issue of LJ for Robin's article on the
Industrial Light & Magic studios, the effects studio for the
Star Wars series, and their conversion to a
Linux renderfarm.

What is happening to the old computers being replaced by new
Linux systems at Industrial Light & Magic? They're being
recycled at ACCRC (Alameda County
Computer Resource Center), the world's largest non-profit
electronics recycling center. Located in Oakland, California, ACCRC
is a self-sustaining, self-funded organization that trains
unemployed, unskilled volunteer workers how to build and maintain
Linux computers.

ACCRC processes more than 200 tons of discarded electronic
equipment per month and provides refurbished computers to schools,
scientists, governments, non-profits, the underprivileged and the
handicapped. A Microsoft-free organization, ACCRC donated more than
5,000 computers last year at no cost to recipients. Thanks to a
donation from SuSE, every computer that ACCRC distributes runs a
full copy of SuSE Linux.

"We recently turned down donations of an aircraft carrier and
a 727", says executive director James Burgett. "But we are ready to
handle a 727 the next time one is offered." The ACCRC 38,000 square
foot complex, a converted ice cream factory, is home to a Linux
cluster and a radio station, and they are building a TV studio and
a computer museum. The radio station is
KOOX 93.7 FM. The Linux
cluster is 30 Athlon 850MHz PCs and up to 350 recently refurbished
PCs that are Pentium 166 or better. Rather than throwing away
cycles on test diagnostics, the cluster performs useful work as a
POVRAY-based renderfarm while the units are undergoing burn-in. The
cluster uses MOSIX (see MOSIX: A Cluster
Load-Balancing Solution for Linux") to transform racks of
cast-off PCs into a single supercomputer.

ACCRC-provided computers find many uses. In Antarctica, the
Chilean expedition is using them to study ozone depletion. The
Russian Space Agency used them to keep Mir in space far longer than
it was designed. Cambodia is writing its new constitution on them.
And every public school in the Oakland area uses ACCRC computers on
a daily basis. In addition, using the Linux cluster as an
encryption testbed and as a honeypot is under consideration.

Once again I was excited to see an article about an interesting topic only to read it and feel no more informed by reading the article than by reading it's title.

And once again the culprit is Robin Rowe.

Mr. Rowe, please please provide more real details on the subjects you cover here and in LJ's print edition. For example, I would like more details on the process that ACCRC goes through in reclaiming machines--do they wipe the hard-drives?, do they have to modernize the BIOS sets to get them to run Linux? Do they consolidate RAM from different machines?

Your article is very short on facts about what AARC does and reads more like a press release to be distributed at a bake sale.